J.D. Salinger Dead at 91

"Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H. 'The Catcher in the Rye,' with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made 'Catcher' a featured selection, advised that for 'anyone who has ever brought up a son' the novel will be 'a source of wonder and delight — and concern.'
Enraged by all the 'phonies' who make 'me so depressed I go crazy,' Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing — more than 60 million copies worldwide — and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams — to never grow up."